Much will seem familiar to Chris Mullin on Friday night, walking into the gym where he spent so many days, standing in front of fans who cheered for him when he was a teenager. Another season at St. John’s will begin and Mullin will hear his name introduced again, unleashing an ovation that has been building since he led the school to the Final Four 30 years ago.

The former player will remember how great it all was. The debuting coach will envision how great it can be again.

“It’s probably a lot of different emotions,” Mullin said Thursday when asked about his official return, against Wagner at Carnesecca Arena for his first game as St. John’s coach. “It’s gonna be a nice feeling, coming home, being back at a place that meant so much to me and to my development as a player and as a person.”

Since being hired March 30, Mullin has spent more than seven months surrounded by hype and nostalgia, waiting for his second chapter on campus to truly begin while wading through a parade of interviews and a seemingly never-ending string of practices.

“It feels like it’s time to get going,” Mullin said. “I’m excited. It’s rare at 52 you do something you’ve never done before. It’s really exciting.”

The excitement before the game is undeniable, but an inexperienced roster filled with unfamiliar faces has created curiosity about everything that will come after tipoff.

Already picked to finish last in the Big East Preseason Coaches’ Poll, the Red Storm received devastating news Wednesday when top recruit and starting point guard Marcus LoVett Jr. was ruled a partial qualifier by the NCAA and ineligible to play this season, robbing the team of its most dynamic playmaker. St. John’s still awaits a ruling from the NCAA on fellow four-star recruit Kassoum Yakwe.

“We’ll come up with solutions and ways to deal with that, as opposed to excuses,” Mullin said. “That’s really out of our control. Now, how we deal with that is in our control.”

Taking over at point guard for the talented southpaw is freshman Federico Mussini, who had four assists and 11 turnovers in two exhibition games against Division II teams. Despite his early struggles, the team feels comfortable with the young Italian running the offense.

“Same confidence we had when Marcus was here,” graduate transfer Ron Mvouika said. “Obviously he’s gonna have to step it up a little more because he doesn’t have a true backup point guard. … He’s gonna step up to the challenge. We’re 100 percent behind him and he’s gonna be just fine.”

It will take time. It will take experience, often bad experience. But after three decades away from home, Mullin is in no rush.

“We try to prepare them in practice, but a lot of this you have to go through and we’re gonna go through it together,” Mullin said. “When you’re dealing with younger athletes, I think you have to expect the unexpected and you can’t take anything for granted. Even when you do that, you have to be prepared for whatever.”